The Guatemalan government announced Friday that it will ask the United States for an FBI team of experts to help recapture the leaders of the Barrio 18 gang who escaped from a prison. Last week, the government revealed the escape of 20 members of Barrio 18—designated a “terrorist” organization by both countries—from Fraijanes II prison near the capital.
“One of my first actions as minister will be to request today the collaboration of the United States government to deploy an FBI team specialized in gangs and fugitives, to assist us in the search for the 16 escaped gang members,” said the new security chief, Marco Antonio Villeda.
“We need all possible help. The FBI has the capability and the willingness to come and work with us to capture these people as soon as possible and get them off the streets,” Villeda insisted at a press conference alongside President Bernardo Arévalo.
The United States called the escape “unacceptable,” prompting Arévalo to remove the security leadership. Villeda, a career judge, took office as Minister of the Interior on Friday after the dismissal of his predecessor, Francisco Jiménez.
On Tuesday, Guatemala’s Congress declared gangs to be “terrorist” organizations and increased prison sentences for their members. So far, only four of the 20 inmates have been recaptured, and it is still unknown when and how they escaped.
We need to capture them
Villeda said that before taking office he met “with authorities from different U.S. agencies” to address the crisis and that he will also reach out to international organizations. The United States designated the Barrio 18 gang a “terrorist” organization in September, months after doing the same with its rival, Mara Salvatrucha.
Both gangs are responsible for the violence in the country and extort shopkeepers and passenger transport businesses. Villeda highlighted that he spent more than 30 years as a judge “enforcing the law and confronting the reality of the criminal world.”
Guatemala’s security forces have the capacity to recapture the fugitives, but the process would be slow and the public is demanding short-term results, he said. “We need to capture these people as soon as possible and, in that sense, the more help we have, the better,” he emphasized.
It will solve nothing
President Arévalo acknowledged the new minister’s judicial track record, a role in which he had to “face gangs, organized crime, and the fight against corruption.” However, many Guatemalans view the government’s promises of an effective crackdown on gangs with skepticism.
“Unfortunately, the new minister won’t solve anything. Everything is corrupt, and laws are useless if they aren’t enforced, nor are new prisons if inmates can escape without problems,” university student Francisco Orantes said.
New prison
To quiet criticism, Villeda said the “first priority is to take control of and overhaul our penitentiary system,” and he noted he will assess changes in the police leadership.
He also said the ministry will work “with intelligence to completely isolate maximum-security inmates, block their outside contacts, and thus reduce the influence of organized crime and lower offenses,” especially extortion.
The minister added that he will seek to speed up construction of a new maximum-security prison to house gang members.
